'Like Father Like Son' (Japan)

'Like Father Like Son' (Japan)

*** (out of four) Why you may care: Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, long interested in dads and their boys, bought remake rights to this Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize-winner. Why you should see it: Examinations of nature vs. nurture don't get much more quietly thrilling. When two families discover their six-year-old boys were switched at birth, there's no easy solution. Trade sons? Have one family raise both? Pretend they never received this shocking news? The presentation of class and priorities sticks to the obvious, and the film doesn't have any standout performances from its adult leads. Yet director Kore-eda Hirokazu ("Nobody Knows," "I Wish"), long skilled at stories of families and working with child actors, delivers a fascinating discussion of human connection and what we may or may not need our children to be. The exquisite "Like Father Like Son" does nothing loudly or quickly, but you feel like you could marvel at it all day, unanswerable questions hovering like kites that have floated away. Showing: 6 p.m. Oct. 16, 7 p.m. Oct. 19

*** (out of four) Why you may care: Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, long interested in dads and their boys, bought remake rights to this Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize-winner. Why you should see it: Examinations of nature vs. nurture don't get much more quietly thrilling. When two families discover their six-year-old boys were switched at birth, there's no easy solution. Trade sons? Have one family raise both? Pretend they never received this shocking news? The presentation of class and priorities sticks to the obvious, and the film doesn't have any standout performances from its adult leads. Yet director Kore-eda Hirokazu ("Nobody Knows," "I Wish"), long skilled at stories of families and working with child actors, delivers a fascinating discussion of human connection and what we may or may not need our children to be. The exquisite "Like Father Like Son" does nothing loudly or quickly, but you feel like you could marvel at it all day, unanswerable questions hovering like kites that have floated away. Showing: 6 p.m. Oct. 16, 7 p.m. Oct. 19

*** (out of four) Why you may care: Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg, long interested in dads and their boys, bought remake rights to this Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize-winner. Why you should see it: Examinations of nature vs. nurture don't get much more quietly thrilling. When two families discover their six-year-old boys were switched at birth, there's no easy solution. Trade sons? Have one family raise both? Pretend they never received this shocking news? The presentation of class and priorities sticks to the obvious, and the film doesn't have any standout performances from its adult leads. Yet director Kore-eda Hirokazu ("Nobody Knows," "I Wish"), long skilled at stories of families and working with child actors, delivers a fascinating discussion of human connection and what we may or may not need our children to be. The exquisite "Like Father Like Son" does nothing loudly or quickly, but you feel like you could marvel at it all day, unanswerable questions hovering like kites that have floated away. Showing: 6 p.m. Oct. 16, 7 p.m. Oct. 19